How to organise a spy-themed children's party

Invitations

Share vital intelligence about the day's proceedings in a suitably secretive
manner

Use a cotton bud to write your invites in
lemon juice on plain white paper - when the lemon juice dries, it
will become invisible

When the paper is held in front of a lightbulb
or other source of heat, the message will reappear. Don't forget
to tell parents this, or add an explanatory note in normal
ink!

Give them a secret password to remember to gain access to the party

Put them in large brown envelopes with Confidential or Top
Secret stamped or written on the front

Costume ideas

Recommend guests dress up to fit the theme

For a suave James Bond
look, style black trousers, a white shirt and bow
tie with slicked back hair and a
briefcase

Alternatively, go for all black - trousers and a T-shirt or polo neck - with sunglasses

A utility belt full of toy gadgets completes the look

Take a photo of each child
as they arrive (or ask parents to send one in advance) and put them in plastic name badge holders to give each child their own spy ID cards

"We also got the children to add their
fingerprints to the cards using an ink
pad."

Buy or make some fake moustaches and search charity shops for a selection of hats, coats and glasses for children to perfect their disguises when they arrive at the party

Decorations

Make children enter the party
venue through a secret
passageway - direct them round to a back entrance or put up a pop-up tunnel

"I hired a hall and made a camouflage tunnel that the children entered by"

Have a few spies lurking ominously
in the
shadows: cut life-size silhouettes
out of large sheets of
black paper or card and stick them to the
walls for a really effective decoration. A cartoon-like spy can be easily mastered, or if you're especially artistic or overambitious, aim for a classic Bond figure.

Use crime scene tape on banisters,
across doorways, and to decorate the table

Create a playlist of theme tunes from your
favourite spy films

Activities and party games

All spies need a secret mission, so get creative dreaming one up

A
spy-themed treasure hunt with plenty of clues will guests occupied for a while.

For cryptic clues, take photos of really obscure
parts of your house - a corner of a bedroom, or a close-up of the top of
the TV, perhaps - and send the kids to find them

If the party is for older children, consider a
trail of code-breaking exercises. You can find plenty of
examples online, or pick up a book fairly cheaply

Hide sweets or other small items around the place and get the children to scour the room for hidden 'bugs'

Get the kids to decipher a secret message revealing
where their lunch is, or lead them to a 'safe' (a cardboard box
covered in tin foil) containing their party bags

Test your spies' stealth with large games of sardines
or hide and seek.

Laser beam maze: create a course of 'lasers' down a hallway with red
wool or streamers zigzagged from wall to wall. The children
have to get from one end to the other without touching a beam. "We put the tea
table at the other end for an added incentive!"

Test the kids' spy instincts by blindfolding them in turn, and getting
them to guess who is standing in front of them just by touch.

If it's a warm day, hand out water pistols or water bombs and send guests outside
for a shootout - or get them all involved with target practice.

Train older children for secret agent missions with this
simple memory game:

Draw or print out a map with plenty of landmarks
and keep it hidden from the children

Split the group into two or more teams

Each team sends one person at a time to look
at the map. They have ten seconds to memorise as much as they can, before
returning to their team and drawing as much as they can remember

The next player adds to the drawing, and so
on

Whichever team has the most information on their
map, wins

You can also give well-known party games a new twist:

Pin the disguise on the
spy

What's the Time, Mr Wolf,
where children are on the trail of a supervillain

Chinese whispers, with
secret spy messages

Pass the parcel, with a
spy mission in each layer - eg. dressing up in spy
gear in less than 30 seconds, or creeping around the room without being
heard while everyone has their eyes shut